Get the latest tech news

Retro No More: Interactive Fiction of the Early Comp Era

2002, Paul O’Brian, a prolific author, reviewer, and commentator on the contemporary interactive-fiction scene, attempted to compile a list of those people who had done the most to help text adventures live on beyond the death of Infocom. Among the names he listed were those of Mike Roberts and Graham Nelson, the creators of TADS and Inform; Andrew Plotkin, who contributed crucial technical innovations of his own and authored a number of perplexing, intriguing games; and Adam Cadre, who wrote the single most-played text adventure of the post-Infocom era.

Among the names he listed were those of Mike Roberts and Graham Nelson, the creators of TADS and Inform; Andrew Plotkin, who contributed crucial technical innovations of his own and authored a number of perplexing, intriguing games; and Adam Cadre, who wrote the single most-played text adventure of the post-Infocom era. Then Wilson convinced the ex-Infocom authors Marc Blank and Mike Berlyn to write one last text-only Zork, which he himself implemented using Graham Nelson’s Inform programming language and which Activision officially released as a free taster for Grand Inquisitor. The next year, the same event, now known as The Interactive Fiction Competition, was held again, without the rather pointless division into TADS and Inform categories; authors could now freely choose to use either of those development systems or any other, knowing their games would be judged alongside their peers without favor or prejudice.

Get the Android app